


Sisterly

by Dira Sudis (dsudis)



Category: Numb3rs, The Sandman
Genre: Community: numb3rsflashfic, Incest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-14
Updated: 2009-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-04 10:18:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dsudis/pseuds/Dira%20Sudis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Death drops in on Math for Non-Mathematicians.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sisterly

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Charlie, Don, and Numb3rs belong to Cheryl Heuton, Nicolas Falacci, and some people at CBS who aren't me. Charlie's visitor belongs to Neil Gaiman and Vertigo Comics.
> 
> Thanks to Iulia and Merry for encouraging me!
> 
> This story was first posted June 4, 2006.

Charlie couldn't help noticing the girl sitting in the back corner at his Math for Non-Mathematicians lecture. She looked like a goth holdout, all in black from her hair to her boots--propped comfortably on the seat in front of her--but seemed incongruously happy and fascinated for the whole hour. She never raised her hand, but then the ones who sat in the back never did; at least she seemed to be paying attention. Once, out of the corner of his eye, Charlie thought he saw someone in the seat next to her, dressed all in white as she was in black, hair to propped-up boots, but when he looked up she was alone, and winked at him.

Charlie smiled, a little thrown, and didn't look directly at her for the rest of the lecture. He wasn't surprised when she walked down to the front at the end of the class, as the rest of the students streamed out the doors, and smiled again as he finished erasing the chalkboards. "Did you have a question?"

"Not really," she said, and something about her voice made him turn and face her and pay attention. She was still smiling sunnily at him, but at close range there was something faintly unsettling about her. She wasn't an undergraduate, as he'd thought when she was safely on the other side of the room. He couldn't have guessed how old she was. Charlie fiddled with the eraser, feeling unaccountably nervous, and she said, "I just wanted to say, Don seems happier lately."

Charlie blinked, thrown again. "You know Don?"

She waved a hand dismissively. Her nail polish was black, too, and her hands were graceful, strong-looking. "Our professional paths have been crossing for years. I see him sometimes. Not at his best moments, usually, but he still seems happier the last little while than he used to."

There was something knowing in her face, in the way she said it, and Charlie shook his head slightly, his stomach clenching cold. He glanced around the room, but they were entirely alone now. "I don't know what you're talking about."

She rolled her eyes. "Sure you do. Listen, it's not the smartest thing you've done in your life, but he's happy, and you're happy when you're not too scared, and trust me--" and her smile turned wry, a little sad; for some reason Charlie thought again of the figure in white, at her side and then not. "You're not the most dysfunctional siblings in the history of the world."

Charlie felt mesmerized. He couldn't take his eyes off her, but there was something about her--something much bigger than her knowing Don, bigger even than knowing about the two of them--so that he didn't feel at all stupid about the feeling of dread, the thready sound of his voice whispering, "Are you here for--for a reason?"

She raised one finger, crooking it to draw him closer, and he went, unresisting, wide-eyed, until he was close enough for her to lean in and whisper in his ear. "It's my day off," she said, her breath cool on his skin. "And I love the thing with the goats."


End file.
